Sounds Like Tough
by thepipistrellepapers
Summary: A series of 100 prompt-based ficlets in the A:tLA/LoK universe. Expect Tokka, childhood!Linzin, Kataang, fluff, angst, policework, Bolin being awesome, and Beifong Family Feels. Not chronological in any way. Reviews are greatly appreciated. Hope you enjoy it!
1. Isolation

Of course Tokka week rolls around, and I suddenly start getting plot bunnies for Toph and Lin stories and childhood!Linzin. I don't understand my life.

I just have a lot of Beifong Family feels, okay?

**Summary: **In the aftermath of the LoK finale, Lin recalls her mother's encounter with bloodbending. Implied past!Linzin.

* * *

"Well, they're finally asleep," Tenzin announced, coming into the kitchen. "Jinora wanted more stories about the valiant Police Chief apprehending warlords, but I put her off. I promised she could have them tomorrow."

Lin made a noncommittal noise. She was sitting on a stool by the counter, nursing a cup of tea, her armor set neatly on a shelf in the pantry. Of course, since the black uniform she wore underneath it was more or less the cloth equivalent of armor, she didn't look any less intimidating.

Tenzin took down another cup and poured tea for himself. "You know, the children are quite fond of you, Lin," he said, as nonchalantly as he could. "You could stay on the island for another week, spend some more time with them. Unless you've important, uh, police business to attend to, of course."

Lin didn't respond; she was too busy scrutinizing her tea like she'd have to pick it out of a lineup later. Tenzin cleared his throat. Lin finally blinked and raised her head. "Did you say something? I was miles away."

"I could see that." Tenzin considered for a moment, then pulled up another stool beside Lin and waved a hand at the window curtains, which billowed closed. "All right, tell me," he said evenly. "Losing your bending. What was it like?"

She looked surprised. "Why would you want to know?"

"Because I think you need to say it," said Tenzin.

Lin accepted this with a nod and looked back down at her tea. Just when Tenzin thought she had decided not to answer, she abruptly asked, "Do you remember when your father came home and told us what had happened at Yakone's trial?"

"Vaguely." Tenzin's brow furrowed with the effort of memory. "I was nine. That would've made you — eight, I suppose."

"He told us a little then. I learned the rest much later. We studied Yakone in the police academy, you know. All the ways he used the officers' own methods against them, to contaminate evidence, get out on loopholes. Of course everyone knew the story of what had happened to him, and one day someone asked my mother what it had been like — to be there at the trial, to feel it all happening. To be under his control.

We were in advanced training, with the practice cables. We were her most dedicated students, the most talented. Gifted Earthbenders, every one. We spent all day honing our bending, improving it, making a life and a purpose out of it. Of course we wanted to know what it was like to lose that, even just for a minute or two."

She trailed off, and was quiet for a while. Eventually, Tenzin broke the silence. "What did Toph say?"

"Not very much," Lin answered. "A little bit about being empty and afraid. That was shocking enough for everyone, that she'd be afraid. It satisfied them, and we went back to practice." Lin drew a fingertip around the edge of her cup. The tea had long gone cold. "I asked her again, at home that night. I could tell when she was lying by omission — I never needed Earthbending for that. I was eighteen."

"And did she tell you?"

Lin nodded again. "At first she didn't know what was happening. She heard Sokka yelling, grunting like an animal, but she couldn't tell Yakone was doing it. She attacked him on instinct. And then… nothing." Lin hunched her shoulders forward, as though trying to protect herself from a gale. "I'll always remember what she said: 'Nothing was left in me.' There was pain, of course, but that was nothing compared to the emptiness. Her connection to the earth, her sight, her power over her own limbs — never mind the prisoner she'd taken with her own hands! — all gone. She couldn't even hear the beating of her own heart."

Lin glanced up at Tenzin and found his eyes trained on her, deep and steady and eternally calm. Strange, that under all his blustering lurked this tranquility. Even now, he was stronger than she'd realized. "Is that what you felt, that emptiness?" he asked quietly.

Lin held his gaze. "My bending is all I have left of her."

"And you have it back." Tenzin laid a hand on her forearm. It was just for a moment, but it was enough. "And besides, it isn't all you have. When Amon took your bending, there was still so much left of you, Lin. There was _you_. You kept going. I don't think there's anything that would have made Toph more proud."

Lin didn't smile, but it was a near thing. She stood, cleared her throat, and began buckling her armor back on. She did it manually, without bending, pressing the seams together and buckling on her wrist braces, to give herself time; and the clanking hid any noise she might have made. Tenzin obediently pretended to be extremely absorbed in his tea.

Finally she turned around to face him again, fully armored and composed. "Thanks for the tea," she said briskly. "I should get back to Headquarters tonight. I don't trust Saikhan to rebuild a broken flowerpot on his own, let alone the city."

"Of course," Tenzin said. "You're welcome here any time, Lin, remember that."

"I will. Thank you." She went to walk past him, but paused. "You're a good friend, Tenzin, even if you are insufferable." She punched him in the shoulder, hard enough to bruise.

As she went on toward the door, he rubbed his shoulder, unable to suppress a wistful smile. Oh, the memories that punch brought back…

Lin paused again in the doorway. "Tell Jinora she'll get her warlord stories next week," she said over her shoulder. "And we'll do some training as well. Just because your children are airbenders doesn't mean you get out of teaching them to have a proper stance."

"My childrens' stances are just _fine_, thank you!" Tenzin protested. Lin just smiled and left.


	2. Naked

So here's a fluffy Tokka thing? I don't even know. It takes place a bit before Reality and is (perhaps surprisingly?) not smut.

**Summary:** Other people get to see Sokka shirtless. Fair's fair.

* * *

When Sokka had agreed to help Toph build herself a house on the outskirts of Republic City, he'd thought it would involve coming up with some schematics, maybe drawing some lines in the dirt with a stick, then a lot of sitting back and relaxing while the World's Greatest Earthbender actually, you know,Earthbended. Maybe there would have been a glass of lemonade involved somewhere.

Instead he found himself stripped to the waist under the blazing noonday sun, soaked in sweat, hacking at the hard dirt with a shovel while Toph relaxed in the shade of a nearby banapple tree. He took a break from digging what he was sure was an infinite trench, and leaned on the shovel. "Hey! You could help out a bit here, you know!" he shouted up at her. "It's not like you could, I don't know, accomplish all of this in less than five minutes with your ridiculous superpowers!"

"I'm on the artistic side this time," she said loftily. "You know, the idea department. Design and feng shui and all that stuff." She framed the rolling landscape with her fingers and pretended to squint at it. "Besides, why settle for bending when you can have the hand-made work of a true craftsman?"

"You're cruel, and a liar," Sokka muttered. "You're also going to be sleeping in the snow, because there's no way this is going to be finished before winter if you don't help!"

"All right, quit complaining. Take five, we'll go into town and get a drink. This is thirsty work," Toph said. She climbed to her feet and stretched. Sokka didn't move. "My treat," she added.

"Finally!" Sokka tossed the shovel over his shoulder and climbed out of the shallow trench he'd been digging all morning. He thought about going back for his shirt, discarded under some bushes further up the hill, but Toph was already heading down the road into the ramshackle collection of huts and scaffolding that would one day, with luck, be the heart of a proper city. Sokka ran to catch up.

They walked through the giant, sprawling workmens' camp, past the dusty foundations of a half-dozen important public buildings, down towards the docks. They'd already become regulars at a handful of sailors' pubs that could be counted on to thank honored war heroes with a few free drinks.

"What is with everyone today?" Toph asked as they came within sight of the water. She turned her head left, then right, as though trying to pinpoint the source of a distant, annoying sound.

Sokka glanced around, but he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. "What do you mean?"

"Is everyone scared of us or something? Whenever we walk past, peoples' hearts get all… fluttery."

"They're probably just in awe of my amazing body," Sokka said, grinning. He flexed, winking at a mostly-female Earthbending crew paving a nearby alley. The foreman scowled, but a few of the workers giggled and waved back. "How is it now?" he asked Toph. "Even flutterier, right? I've been known to have that effect on the unprepared."

"You're shirtless?" Toph exclaimed. "Why didn't you say so?"

"Well, I didn't think you'd — HEY! Aack!" Toph lunged at him, making a grab for his chest. He backpedaled, just managing to avoid toppling over. "Toph! What are you doing?"

"What, everyone gets to see you shirtless but me? That's no fair!"

"It's not about fair, it's — Toph! That tickles!" In no time she'd backed him up against a wall and was running her hands over his chest and stomach, while he convulsed with laughter and tried to slap her hands away. "Get — off —"

"Not a chance, Meathead," she retorted. "Hold still, I've almost got it." The tip of her tongue was poking out of her mouth as she concentrated on memorizing the shape and feel of him, sweat-slick skin and all.

Finally, long after they'd starting attracting stares from the work crews and shopkeepers, Toph decided she was satisfied and backed away. Sokka leaned against the wall, sucking in great lungfuls of air as he tried to recover from his giggle-fit.

"Well, I guess I can see why people are noticing us," Toph said, smirking. "Still don't get what all the flutteriness is about, though. Is there some other part of you everyone else gets to see that I can't? Fair's fair, you know." She raised one eyebrow, more suggestively than Sokka had ever seen anyone raise an eyebrow before. It was kind of impressive.

"I don't think the blind card works for getting me naked, Toph," he wheezed, beginning to get his breath back.

Toph shrugged. "Eh, it was worth a try. Come on, let's get that drink."

She turned and started down the street again, and once more Sokka had to jog to follow her. "Wait a minute," he said as he caught up to her. "Was this whole house-building thing a ploy to get me to take my clothes off?"

Toph grinned. "No, that was just for fun. But I like the way you think, Snoozles. Got any more ideas?"

They'd reached the first of the sailors' pubs, and the much-tattooed patrons eating at the streetside tables turned to stare at them with open curiousity. Sokka suddenly became very aware of his state of undress and Toph's smirk, and found himself blushing. "Later," he said, his voice half a squeak.

"You're such a tease," said Toph, still grinning. She held the door open for him, and he strolled into the welcome coolness of the pub, holding his head up and trying to look as dignified as he could.

It didn't work very well. _Later_, indeed.


	3. Difficult

Implied Tokka drabble. This one takes place within a few months of the last one, 'Naked'. I have this headcanon of Sokka and Toph trying to date, self-destructing in hilarious disaster, and ending up with a very friends-with-benefits-type relationship for a while. They'd both be in their early twenties at this point.

**Summary:** Sokka tries to explain things to Zuko, but there are some things Zuko is quite happy to leave unexplained.

* * *

"I don't get it," said Zuko, resting his elbows on the balcony's marble railing. "Why'd you let her just tear into you like that?"

Sokka sat cross-legged with his back to the railing, trying to saw a melon apart with the sharp edge of his boomerang. Zuko's question made him twist around and peer down at the glittering party spilling out into the courtyard below them. "What, you mean Toph?" he said. He could just pick her out, a glint of armor juggling boulders. "It's no big deal, she makes fun of me in public all the time."

"Yeah, I know. Why don't you stop her? Aren't you… I don't know… embarrassed?"

Sokka stared pensievely into the distance, then ruined the effect by licking the melon juice off his boomerang. "Look," he said, "you bend lightning, right? And once it starts, it can't be stopped, and you just have to give it a path to follow? Well, Toph can be exactly like that – like a force of nature. Except she's an Earthbender, so it's like lighting, but also like an avalanche."

"A lightninglanche," Zuko said slowly.

Sokka beamed. "Yes, exactly! A lightninglanche! You know, I had my doubts about you when you were an evil jerk, but I'm glad we're friends, Zuko. I've clearly been a good influence on you."

"Whatever." The young Firelord scowled down at his many-splendored guests. He'd come up to the balcony to get some peace and quiet, not to talk to Sokka, of all people. He was beginning to wonder if you could smoke an infestation of war heroes out of your house like an infestation of roachrats. "So you're the ground in this metaphor, right?" Zuko asked. "And when Toph's angry, the lightning is drawn to you?"

"Angry? You thought that was _angry_? Listen, kid, you haven't seen Toph angry," Sokka scoffed.

Zuko's scowl deepened. "You mean that wasn't where you were going with this explanation?"

"Oh. Uh…" Sokka scratched the top of his head with his boomerang handle, thinking hard. "Mine and Toph's relationship, like a lightninglanche, is…ah…" he paused, then gave up. "It's difficult to explain."

"No it's not," Zuko muttered. "You're both just crazy."

"Hey, it's not like all she does is make fun of me, you know," said Sokka. "There's something in it for me, too. _Rewards_, if you know what I mean. Of the _if-you-know-what-I-mean_ persuasion." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"I don't have to listen to this," Zuko muttered, feeling ill. He turned and stalked back into the palace, leaving Sokka alone with the grand view of the twilit mountains on the horizons and the party guests below.

Sokka hefted his melon, which had so far resisted all attempts to slice it up, and looked for Toph in the crowd again. It was a long shot, but he thought he could probably hit her with it from here – or near enough, anyway, since she wouldn't dodge.

He thought about what she might do to him later, as payback, and grinned.

* * *

Reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!


	4. Erratic

A long(ish) Tokka(ish) drabble, takes place when the Gaang are in their early twenties.

**Summary: **Toph finds Sokka; Sokka is stupid (but has a good reason).

* * *

"_Get him on the floor!_"

It was a roar – but a nice roar, Sokka thought. A familiar roar. Probably _not_ the roar of the rabid saber-toothed mooselion that seemed to have trampled him several times over, paying special attention to his head. He tried to open his eyes, but the left one felt sore and sticky, and the brief splinter of light that hit the right one caused pain so intense he thought he might vomit, so he decided to take it easy for a while. Just lie there, see what happened.

What happened was more shouting – "_I said floor! NOW!" _– and then rough, cold hands grabbed his legs and shoulders, hauled him unceremoniously off the rickety cot he'd been lying on, and lowered him to the floor. It was cold, too – stone floor, Sokka thought, with some difficulty. His mind seemed to be clouded and slow, which was bad, there were Fire Nation rebels around somewhere. Stone floor, why so important?

Ah. Of course.

"Toph?" he croaked, or at least meant to croak, although the sound that emerged wasn't much like speech. His throat felt like he'd swallowed glass. He took a deep, shuddering breath and tried again, turning his head away from the light and opening his right eye again. "Toph, issat you?"

"Shut up," Toph snapped. She was there beside him, kneeling with both hands flat on the floor by his head. With his one working eye he could see the armored curve of her shoulder and half her face, obscured as it was by tangles of dark hair that had escaped from her bun. He thought her useless eyes shone like the moon, and he must have tried to tell her so, because she suddenly snarled "Shut up, Sokka, or I'll break your boomerang and both your arms. Just. Hold. Still."

There was no point arguing. He shut his eye again and tried to hold still, which was pretty easy, since his limbs felt somehow both numb and heavy. Then Toph's voice came again, hard as flint. "Breathe in. Out. In again. Good."

There was quiet for a while. Finally a single intelligible idea surfaced from the slow, shifting mire of Sokka's thoughts, and he managed to choke out, "Drugged?"

He heard the clink of armor as Toph shifted beside him. "Yeah. They must have got you with a dart or something. We started searching when you hadn't come home the morning after Zuko's party." A pause. "That was yesterday."

Sokka risked opening his eye again and saw that Toph was sitting now, one knee drawn up to her chest, looking simultaneously like an immoveable object and a scared young woman in too-new police armor. One hand was still pressed flat near his head, almost in the crook of his neck. "What're you doing?" he asked.

"Listening to your heartbeat," she said. "Katara taught me some stuff. Too fast means shock, too slow means you're still drugged. Erratic means – I don't know, I wasn't paying that much attention. It's fine, though, you're fine. I sent the men for help, you'll be fine soon."

"Good," Sokka croaked, because that sounded like good news. Then, because he was intensely woozy and he hated the bleak, angry look on her face, he said as jokingly as he could, "Wish I could feel _your_ heartbeat righ' now."

"No you don't," she muttered, but she was smiling a bit, and that was all he wanted. "Spirits, you're stupid," she added as he closed his eye and let his head loll back again. His forehead came to rest against the metal plating of her wrist guard, which felt delightfully cool.

There was a lot of yelling after that, and a lot of movement and pain and light, and after a few moments Toph's arm went away, but Sokka didn't mind. She'd listened to his heart and called him stupid, and if that wasn't a sign that things were all right in this erratic world, then he didn't know what was.

* * *

Reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!


	5. Soothe

Here's a super long one! Hooray?

This takes place when the Gaang are in their early thirties. Lin is a little less than a year old.

**Summary: **Sokka finds a way to save the day.

* * *

Night fell on Republic City, and with it came celebration. Sokka grinned as he strolled down the empty streets, hearing the cheers go up all around him as families huddled in their homes listened to the official radio broadcast he'd just finished writing: _the Terrible Triad has been caught and imprisoned! The streets are safe again! Chief Beifong saves the day!_

He'd snuck away from the Council meeting early, hoping to get in a bit of celebration with the hero of the hour before they both started the grueling task of rebuilding the city's infrastructure and its trust. Some small instinct left over from the war had been eating at him all day; he couldn't shake the feeling that, even with the Terrible Triad locked away, the city's underbelly would never be the same. They'd be seeing more triads, he was sure. It was too efficient a setup for criminal masterminds to resist. In the morning he would have to go back to City Hall and grapple once again with the shaky, labyrinthine law, and argue endlessly with his fellow government officials, and ultimately do so very little while the gangsters and murderers and thieves made their own, much more expedient, plans…

But all that was for tomorrow, and he needed a reminder of why it was all worthwhile before he went back to it. So tonight was for Toph, and Lin, and war stories, and wine. He shifted the bag on his shoulder, listening to the bottles inside clink softly together, and smiled.

His smile faded as he rounded the corner that brought him in sight of Toph's house. Light spilled out from the open door, and even from down the street he could hear Lin crying — not the normal cry for hunger or attention, but a constant, harsh, terrified wail. He broke into a run.

He hit the door at full speed, his boomerang in his hand. "Toph," he cried, or tried to, but the ground jerked out from under him and he fell hard on his back with an "oof".

"Sokka? Is that you?" Toph choked out. "What the hell are you doing?"

Sokka sat up and looked around. The front room of the house was destroyed; it looked like it had been ransacked by a pack of maddened badgermoles, or a very angry Earthbending toddler. Toph stood silhouetted in the door to the kitchen, one hand still in the Earthbending form that had tripped him. In her other arm she held her daughter, who was squirming as though trying to escape and still shrieking at the top of her lungs.

"I heard Lin crying, I thought something was wrong," Sokka said, rubbing the back of his head where he'd cracked it on the floor. "Is something wrong?"

"I don't _know_," Toph said, Sokka heard a ragged edge to her voice. "Kya was watching her, then as soon as I came home she just started screaming — I can't get her to stop —" Toph's voice broke on the last word. Sokka scrambled to his feet; Toph stepped forward to help him, and for the first time he got a good look at her without the kitchen light behind her, blinding him.

She was still in her duty armor, though it was far from the polished, gleaming uniform he'd seen at the press conference the previous morning. Now every inch of her was scratched, battered, smeared with dried mud and what looked like motor oil. Sokka's blood ran cold for a moment as Toph reached out a hand to help him up and he saw that her wrist and shoulder guards had been torn open, and the sleeve beneath was encrusted with dried blood. He grabbed her elbow as she went to pull away, and lifted the edges of the sleeve to check for a wound, but the skin of her arm was clean and whole — thanks to Katara, no doubt.

"Your sister fixed it," Toph said, confirming his suspicions. "She's still down at Headquarters, helping the others. She sent me home, even though I'm completely fine…" Lin's crying had died down a bit, but now she was banging on Toph's breastplate, and every blow of her tiny fist seemed to shake the Earthbender a little. Sokka knew the verge of exhaustion when he saw it, and from the looks of things Toph had gone careening over it at full speed quite a while ago.

"Yeah, I don't know what Katara was thinking," he said. "I think I know why the little badgermole's upset, though. She thinks her mother's been replaced by a gutter-slime swamp-monster — a bleeding one, too. Give her here." He lifted Lin out of Toph's arms; she quieted down at once, snuggling up to his shoulder. "You look terrifying, Toph," he told her. "Go get cleaned up, relax for a few minutes. You've earned it. I'll take care of things here."

The look of gratitude that flashed across Toph's face warmed him to his toes. She didn't stay and argue, but immediately turned and retreated into the house; that alone showed him how tired she was.

Sokka looked thoughtfully around the room, taking in the knocked-over lanterns and knickknacks, the head-sized boulders torn out of the walls, the structural damage that you'd definitely need Earthbending to fix. A quick glance through the doorway told him that the kitchen would be just as bad, if not worse.

In his arms, Lin giggled.

"All right, pebble," he said, holding Lin around the waist and lowering her so her feet touched the ground. "We're going to play a game…"

* * *

After a little less than an hour Toph emerged from her bedroom, feeling clean and mostly human again, though muscles all over her body were protesting in ways that she hadn't known were possible before she'd joined the police force.

To her mild shock, the first sensation that met her questing feet was _completeness; _she could feel that the living room walls were no longer peppered with holes, and the gouges in the kitchen floor had been filled in with (rather inexpertly) packed dirt. The second sensation that came to her was quiet. The third was noise underneath the quiet, faint and peaceful and coming from the kitchen.

She paused a moment outside the kitchen doorway, looking for Lin, and felt a brief moment of cold fear as she realized she couldn't feel her daughter anywhere in the house. There was only Sokka, whistling softly as he stood in front of the stove… Sokka, who she realized seemed to have two heartbeats.

She walked into the kitchen, coming up behind him and laying a hand on his shoulder. Her fingers at once found the leather strap of the Water Tribe-style sling, a gift from Katara that Toph hadn't known she still had. She followed the strap across Sokka's muscular shoulder, down to where Lin rested in the fur-lined cradle in the middle of his back. Lin gurgled and grabbed her mother's fingers. Toph smiled.

"Feeling better?" Sokka asked. He hadn't turned around, so as not to disturb the mother and daughter. Toph ran her fingers over the cradle until she figured out how to loosen it, then lifted Lin out and held her close. This time Lin only made a soft sound of contentment, buried her head in her mother's shoulder, and fell asleep.

"Much better," Toph sighed.

"Good." She could hear the smile in Sokka's voice. "Sit down," he ordered, and she obeyed. "Have you eaten?"

"I… yes. Katara made me, I think." Her memories of the past day and half were jumbled and confused; there had been a great deal of running and fighting and exhaustion and pain, and she was sure it would all come back to her in excruciating detail tomorrow when it was time to talk to the reporters and the Council, but for now she was having a hard time thinking about anything outside this room.

Sokka, of course, never stopped thinking about the city and the world. "You were amazing today, Toph," he said, sitting across from her at the stone table. "There are a lot of people who are going to feel safe with their families again because of you." There was a rustling of paper from across the table. "The newspapers had some pretty nice things to say this afternoon, lots of 'Greatest Earthbender Ever' and 'Esteemed Police Chief'. I brought some of the best articles over, I thought I could read them to you if you want…?"

Toph couldn't help but smirk. Sokka knew her too well. "Much as I love to hear how great I am," she said, fighting back a yawn, "I think I'll pass for tonight. Tomorrow at lunch maybe? It'll make me want to kill them less during the press conference in the afternoon."

"Sure." There was more rustling, presumably as Sokka put the papers away.

There was a moment of silence as Toph, lulled by her daughter's tiny heartbeat and her best friend's slow breathing, struggled not to fall asleep. Then the kettle whistled on the stove, pulling her back to wakefulness. The clattering of Sokka's chair and feet as he stood to pour the tea woke her up a bit more.

"How'd you calm Lin down, anyway?" she asked.

"It was no big deal," he said cheerfully, setting a cup of tea down in front of her. "I'm a babybender, remember? Screaming children are a piece of cake. Anyway, it's the least I can do for the hero of the hour." His voice turned grave. "You know, Toph, you're out there every day really fighting the bad guys, chasing them down dark alleys —"

"Yeah, real dark," Toph muttered.

Sokka ignored her. "You're on the front lines protecting the city, while I sit in City Hall arguing with Zuko's ministers. I know it's important, but it can all feel a little… pointless sometimes —"

"Watch it, Meathead, or I'll make you join the force," Toph said. "Think you could use babybending in a fight?"

Sokka paused for a second, imagining it, then burst out laughing. Lin stirred at the noise, trying to burrow deeper into Toph's shoulder. Toph covered a yawn.

Sokka's laughter died down, and he got his breath back. "Bedtime for everyone, I think," he said. "Need any help with her?"

"I'll be all right," Toph said, pulling herself to her feet. Her limbs suddenly seemed to be made of lead, and her daughter weighed as much as if she were made of stone, but she thought she had enough strength to make it to Lin's room and back before she collapsed. Sokka stood as well and started gathering up the tea things and putting them away.

"Hey," Toph said, still standing by the table. She felt Sokka turn to look at her, and took two swift steps forward, grabbing his shirt and pulling him in for a brief, intense kiss. "Thanks for tonight," she said, letting him go. Lin, undisturbed by the kiss, lay like against her shoulder like a sack of coal.

"Of course," he said.

Toph grinned. "No, I mean it. You should tell them about it tomorrow. I can see the headlines: 'Babybending Councilman Meathead saves the day!'"

She disappeared into Lin's room, and as Sokka continued to clean up, he heard the soft murmur and then soft singing as she put Lin to bed. He grinned to himself, his lips still tingling like he was twenty and the kiss had been their first. He repeated her words in his head. _Councilman Meathead saves the day_!

Nonbender, peaceful politician — tomorrow he would go back to being not effective enough at protecting his city. But he could save the day this way, for this family, and for now it was enough.

* * *

Reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!


	6. Ignore

So I was rewatching "The Day of Black Sun", and of all the sixty thousand times that Toph saves everyone's lives in that episode, the one that hit me hardest was when she, Sokka and Aang are fighting Azula in the catacombs. Seriously, just go rewatch that scene. I'll wait.

Back? Good. Here's a little ficlet — it's super short because the last one was so long. Hope you enjoy it anyway.

**Summary:** Azula laid snares for all of them.

* * *

Afterwards, Toph was never sure how she'd known about the knife. Had she heard it first, the sinister, almost sub-sonic _snikt_ as it slid out of Azula's wrist sheath? Had she felt the movement of metal, one more steel spike on a girl wearing armor that was made of nothing but sharp steel spikes? Or had she just known, known that Azula wouldn't provoke Sokka into rushing her like that unless she had something nasty waiting for him?

Toph didn't know. The certainty of when and how to move had come to her from a place of instinct, of Earthbending, and somehow it had let her move faster than both Sokka and Azula, so the knife clattered harmlessly away over the stones instead of sinking into his stomach.

She thought about it sometimes afterwards, that encounter beneath the abandoned palace. Azula had meant to bait and contain them, and of course she'd done her research; she had gone to great lengths to find out what Sokka, even at his most focused and strategic, couldn't ignore. And maybe she'd chosen to pick on Sokka because he was sort of their leader, or because he'd figured out her plot first, but that didn't really matter.

It seemed obvious to Toph that Azula would have had a hook for each of them; a secret, a taunt, a thread of fear that, once pulled, would have unraveled all their courage and determination and showed the holes where they'd worn thin. It wouldn't have been hard to break Aang that way. He'd been wound so tightly during the eclipse attack that there were a dozen cracks Azula could have hit to make him crumble.

During a few unsteady, vulnerable moments, those fugitive days in the Western Air Temple, Toph wondered what her hook would have been. What had Azula tried to take from her? What would have kept her there, raging uselessly underground, while her friends fought and died up above? What would she have thrown away their whole mission, the whole world, to protect?

Then her thoughts would inevitably circle back to that knife, the wicked edge of it, the gutting curve. Not knowing who she would have the opportunity to trap, Azula had laid snares for all of them, and she had never intended to catch Toph with blind jokes. That was amateur stuff.

Though she had trouble admitting it to herself at first, when she woke up a few days later to find that Sokka had disappeared, Toph knew what Azula's plan for her had been. One bite of that knife would have been all it took to uncover what Toph could not ignore.

* * *

Reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!


	7. Strong

Sorry for the bit of a hiatus. Real life is hectic right now, so I may be updating a bit slower for the next week, but things will get back on track after that. In the meantime, have a thing.

Even when I try to write fluff, it turns into angst.

**Summary: **Toph teaches Lin that fighting is about more than strength.

* * *

When Lin was twelve, she got into a fight at school against a Firebending boy four years her senior, and she lost. She was moments away from having her hair burned off by the time the teachers managed to separate them.

Toph was forced to leave the interrogation of a serial thief to come and pick her daughter up. When she arrived, she found Lin sitting ramrod-straight on the bench outside the school, staring straight ahead, her hands folded neatly in her lap, in the seething depths of a terrible sulk.

Neither of them spoke until they had walked halfway home, when Lin finally said, "He was bullying the Waterbenders. I tried to stop him, but I wasn't strong enough."

Toph shook her head. "Don't worry about that. You're a Beifong; you'll be the strongest bender in Republic City someday. Maybe even the strongest in the world."

Lin stared. "Stronger than the Avatar?"

"If you want to be." Toph turned her head, looking just to left of where Lin's voice was coming from. "Fighting isn't just about being strong, though. You should know that. What's the key to Earthbending?"

"'The key to Earthbending is your stance,'" Lin recited. "But Mother, this wasn't about my stance! He was huge, he could've just picked me up and thrown me around!"

"No he couldn't have, not if you didn't let him," said Toph. "When I was your age, I fought Earthbenders as big as mountains, but they never even got near me."

"Yeah, well, maybe I'm just not as good as you!" Lin shouted.

Toph stopped walking. They had emerged from the densely packed heart of Republic City and were up in the hills, where the houses were larger and further apart. Lin recognized the path they were on; just over the hill was an apple orchard with a natural crevasse running through it, that she and Tenzin had discovered the year before. A soft breeze rustled the trees, and a flurry of new leaves blew across the path.

"Lin Beifong, listen to me," Toph said.

Lin stopped as well and stood staring at her feet, avoiding her mother's clouded eyes.

"I don't care that you got in a fight," Toph said, making Lin look up in surprise. "And it's okay to lose fights," Toph went on. "Sometimes you go up against someone bigger or stronger or better prepared, and they beat you. But don't you ever doubt yourself, not for a second. Understand?"

"That's easy for you to say!" Lin cried. "Everyone already thinks you're the best Earthbender in the world! You don't have everyone just waiting for you to mess up, people picking on you because they want to prove they're stronger than you —"

"Trust me, I know what that's like," Toph said. "But it doesn't matter, not for you. Know why?"

Lin couldn't speak; she was afraid she would cry. She shook her head.

Toph went down on one knee, so she was on her daughter's level. "Having a good fighting or Earthbending stance isn't just about your body," she said. "It's about your mind and your spirit, too. You won't be strong enough to move a rock, or win a fight, unless you _know _you are."

Lin sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "You sound like Tenzin."

Toph smiled. "Sometimes those Airbenders are onto something with all their spiritual mumbo-jumbo. Aang calls it 'will and belief'; I call it _attitude_, and you've got it in spades. It's normal to feel doubts, and be afraid, and feel like you aren't strong enough or good enough. Everyone feels like that — I've felt like that, too. But I don't want you to worry about it, not ever, because I know you're the strongest, smartest, toughest Earthbender in the whole world. Promise me you'll remember that, okay?"

Lin was crying now. Toph opened her arms. "Come here, badgermole," she said, and Lin ran into her embrace, resting her forehead on the cool metal plate over her mother's shoulder like she hadn't since she was a little kid.

Toph held her for a while, stroking her hair softly with one hand. Finally Lin's sobs subsided into sniffles, then hiccups, then faded. Still she stayed in her mother's arms, resting quietly and listening to the strong and steady heartbeat she could feel through the metal of Toph's armor.

_Attitude. You're the strongest, smartest, toughest Earthbender in the world; remember that._ Lin closed her eyes and promised herself that she would remember. And if she forgot, her mother would remind her.

* * *

When Lin was thirty-eight, she was appointed Republic City's Chief of Police.

The swearing-in ceremony was held on a slick gray morning early in winter, in the office that had stood empty since Toph Beifong's death six months before. Lin had asked that it be a small, efficient affair, with only the necessary officials present (and Councilman Sokka, retired now, who was not necessary but would be there anyway with tears in his eyes).

As Lin crossed the courtyard of Police Headquarters on her way to the ceremony, feeling a weight on her shoulders far heavier than her new armor, a glint of metal caught her eye. She looked up at the statue of Chief Beifong, newly finished, that stood astride Headquarters and stared out over the city with unseeing eyes.

To the criminals who might roam those streets, and to some of the police officers who'd trained under Toph, that statue was a fearsome sight. That day, as she would every day for the rest of her time as Chief, Lin looked up at it and stood a little straighter. The promise she'd made twenty-six years ago was now little more than the vague recollection of a familiar heartbeat and a feeling of resolve, but it was still with her, and it was enough.

The Council and highest-ranking metalbending officers were waiting to swear her in, to remake her as the city's protector. Lin Beifong, the strongest, smartest, toughest Earthbender in the whole world, took a deep breath and went in to meet her destiny.

* * *

Reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!


	8. Heat

Sorry for the epic posting fail, real life got in the way. Here's a bit of an older thing while I try to get into the swing of writing new fic again. In this one Toph is about sixteen, Sokka about nineteen, give or take. It's pure, unadulterated fluff.

**Summary: **Toph is sick, Sokka tries to help.

* * *

"This was the worst idea ever," Toph muttered, and sneezed. She sniffled, burrowing deeper into the pile of blankets and packs that had grown to take up a whole corner of Appa's saddle. "You are the worst idea guy ever, did you know that?" she said thickly. "The worst. Even Zuko has better ideas than you."

"I know, I know," Sokka grumbled. He'd gone to sit at Appa's head, hoping the wind would carry Toph's insults and pathetic sniffling away, but it didn't seem to be working. It was the fourth day of their trip to the South Pole, and the World's Mightiest Earthbender had been sneezing and sniffling and coughing and insulting Sokka for three of them.

Well, to be accurate, she'd been insulting Sokka before she'd caught cold. Just not quite as vehemently.

He turned to try and look at her, but all he could see was a stray forearm poking out of a pile of blankets, hats, Sokka's spare parka, and every other bit of cold-weather gear they'd packed. The whole pile shifted as Toph shivered, and one of Sokka's spare gloves was dislodged, revealing a glimpse of green headband and dark hair.

Sokka thought about trying to retrieve the glove, then decided against it. He'd put on his parka for the second day of their trip, once the mild Earth Kingdom spring had begun to give way to the biting chill of altitude and home. Somehow, Toph had stolen it off of him during the night, and every time he'd tried to get it back, she'd insisted that she would freeze to death without it.

Also, she made a noise like a feral badgermole whenever he got too close, and he wasn't quite willing to admit to himself how scary that was.

So he tried to ignore the cold, focusing instead on navigating by the stars, which were becoming increasingly familiar. He occasionally managed to plot constellations for three whole minutes before Toph's coughing distracted him.

He sighed.

He had been holding Appa's reins, but now he looped them together and tossed them over the bison's horns. "Forget navigation, just go to Aang," Sokka told him. Appa grunted his assent.

Sokka stood and stretched, throwing a casual glance back over his shoulder like he was afraid Toph would catch him looking. Even under all her hoarded layers, he could see that she was still shivering, and the sight finally prodded him over the edge of fear into frustrated, stupid, heartachey courage. After all, even if she did bite him like a badgermole would, so what? Her teeth weren't that big. He'd probably live.

He made his way against the wind to the back of the saddle. Even without her Earthbending, Toph heard him coming and curled up, making that badgermole noise again. "Go 'way," she growled, and, weirdly, her rough, congested voice broke Sokka's heart a little.

So he didn't go away. Instead he settled on his knees next to the pile of furs. "Cold out here, huh?" he said, nonchalant. Toph's response was muffled and unintelligible, but he got the gist of it. "Look," he sighed. "I know you're feeling awful, and I want to do something that might help. Just… promise you won't kill me."

"No promises," Toph muttered, then subsided into a coughing fit that left her breathless and too exhausted to argue. Sokka quickly lifted the edge of the nearest blanket and crawled into Toph's makeshift shelter. The blast of cold air from the outside startled her and she pulled back reflexively, kicking him hard in the shins in the process. "What are you —?" she gasped, then started coughing again.

When she had got her breath back, Sokka said, "My hometown is literally a frozen wasteland. I know about keeping warm. Trust me."

Before she could try to punch him, he grabbed her shoulder, showing her how he wanted her to roll over with her back to him. He did the same, and for a moment there was silence, as Sokka imagined all the ways that Toph was imagining killing him for invading her space, and Toph was absorbed in trying to breathe.

After a moment, though, he could feel the air in the little shelter starting to warm up, and Toph's shivering against his back slowly began to subside. It was pitch-black in middle of the blanket-pile; he could have moved aside a flap of fur to see the stars, but it would have opened the little hollow to the cold outside, so instead he just lay there in darkness.

Small things absorbed him. The smells of sealskin and bison fur. The gentle rocking motion that came with riding something not in contact with the ground. The World's Greatest Earthbender curled up against him, her bony shoulder blades digging into his back as she adjusted to his new role as a human furnace. For a moment, he imagined (stupidly) that he could feel her heart beating through the layers of cloth that separated them. He wondered if this was a little bit like what life was for her all the time.

"Toph?" he said quietly, not knowing what he wanted to say. She didn't answer; her breathing, loud and labored as it had been since she'd been sick, was quieter and more even now than it had been a moment ago. Sokka let her be. They'd be landing at the South Pole before dawn, and then there would be plenty of time for halting explanations and awkward glances (which you'd think would be less awkward when the other person involved was blind, but no). And, of course, he shuddered to think what Katara would say…

He fell asleep thinking of it, while Appa carried them further on into the field of the southern stars.

* * *

Reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!


	9. Dim

So here's a thing.

* * *

black

pitch black

in Sokka's lungs, choking him. Freezing water so cold it burned, so dark it was completely invisible, so heavy — heavy — it dragged him down, closed over him, swallowed him whole and no one would ever know what had happened to him, not Mom or Dad or his baby sister — he'd be gone, all except for his ghost, like in the stories — his soul would be trapped, desperately trying to claw its way back to the sunlit world, and his fingernails would leave cracks in the Ice —

Sokka woke all at once, in a single shudder of breath, and opened his eyes. All he could see was the darkness, as heavy and thick as the water in his nightmare, pressing down, suffocating him. He rubbed frantically at his face, checking his eyes were open. Had he gone blind? Had he drowned as a child, fallen through the Ice, and his whole life since then had been the dream of a lonely undersea ghost? Had he been buried alive?

His private panic was interrupted as something next to him started thrashing and grumbling. Sheer horror froze Sokka to his bones, as half-forgotten myths of giant squidsharks rose up from the depths of his childhood. He was trying to work up the strength to scream when he was hit in the face by a soft, fluffy pillow.

"Sokka? What's wrong?" Toph asked, sleepy and bewildered, and suddenly everything snapped into place. The hard surface under him wasn't the rocky seafloor, it was just a rock, the raised rock Toph covered with blankets and called her bed. He wasn't a drowned, hallucinating ghost; he was just in Toph's bed, in the house she'd built for herself, without the least regard for nonessentials like light.

He could still feel his heart racing with the horror of his dream; that must have woken her, he thought numbly. She had wriggled towards him and was now exploring his arm and chest with her fingers, marveling at the tension in his muscles, his sheen of cold sweat. "What's wrong?" she asked again, sounding more curious than concerned.

Sokka swallowed a few times. "Too dark," he choked out.

"What? Oh." Toph's hands paused on his chest as she concentrated. There was a cracking, crumbling sound and light poured in from up near the ceiling, brilliant late-morning sunlight, warm and golden and welcoming even though it was accompanied by a cloud of dust. The faint strains of birdsong drifted in with it. Sokka wanted to cry.

He could see Toph now, sitting up beside him with her hair twisted out at all angles. In the light from the new window, she cast a shadow that did look remarkably like a giant squidshark.

She still had one hand on his chest, over his heart, and she sat still for a moment, listening. When she was satisfied that his heartbeat was slowing back down, she flopped back down on the bed and turned her back to him. "Geez," she said around a yawn, "you seeing people are so weird."

* * *

Reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!


End file.
